Monday, March 21, 2016

Came home to a house whose furnace/air conditioning doesn't work so we'll have to have that fixed ASAP. Will be trying to arrange that today and tomorrow. Those of you who expressed an interest in getting the last of the 100 Heads Life Insurance tees at the gun show price are welcome to them at $15-- per shirt plus shipping but you must, because the quantities are finite, arrange for you order in advance. That is, send me your order (color, size, quantity) BEFORE you send me the money and I will tell you what I have and how much it will be. Obviously email is faster than snail nail to the PO Box. At present we have a good selection of sizes and colors, but that will change. We only sold one shirt at the AGCA show, so get them while you can. There won't be any more procured to fill orders at this end. Remember, tell me what you what BEFORE sending any money and I'll reserve yours and tell you how many I can ship. This will prevent any hard feelings/refunds.

I will have a similar list of military surplus later this week, to be handled in the same fashion.

LATER, re: tee shirt inquiries: PLEASE INCLUDE ADDRESS TO BE SHIPPED TO AND UNDERSTAND THAT I HAVE NO TRIPLE X SIZES IN STOCK. DOUBLE X IS THE LARGEST WE HAVE. ALSO IF YOU GET BOUNCE BACKS ON THE EMAILS I CANNOT FIND ANY IN MY SPAM FOLDER SO YOU'LL HAVE TO SEND IT VIA SNAIL MAIL.

It’s easy to dismiss Trump as a loutish ignoramus who simply doesn’t understand how modern economies function. But I’ve come to see him as a canny spokesman for a different sort of economy, one that often goes by the technical name ‘‘rent seeking.’’ In economics, a ‘‘rent’’ is money you make because you control something scarce and desirable, whether it’s an oil field or a monopolistic position in a market. There is a bit of ‘‘rent’’ in nearly every transaction. When you pay rent on an apartment, some of the money is for the value the landlord has added to the property, by upgrading the kitchen, say. But much of the money your landlord makes comes from the fact that he or she controls property in a desirable location. If you think of the transactions that make people the most frustrated, they are, most likely, rent-seeking transactions in which some force is imposing a better ‘‘deal’’ for one party. Your cable service costs more and is less responsive because local monopoly allows the company to make a better ‘‘deal’’ for itself. The owner of the local pro-sports team can make a ‘‘deal’’ with the city for a new stadium, or else the team packs up and leaves town. Without real competition, one or both sides of a rent-seeking transaction lack leverage, and so decisions can be hashed out only by powerful people making deals in back rooms.

I learned a great deal about rentier economies, as they’re sometimes known, when I spent a year in Baghdad, covering the American occupation of Iraq between 2003 and 2004. I met many of Iraq’s leading businesspeople, and they always talked about ‘‘deals.’’ As one explained to me, there would be some business opportunity — building a hospital, say, or getting a license to import a new line of cars — and Saddam Hussein’s family would essentially auction off the opportunity to the handful of wealthy businesspeople whom they deemed trustworthy. Success came not from being better at building hospitals or more efficient at importing cars. It came from understanding the internal family politics of the Husseins and the power of the state bureaucracy.

As an economic journalist, when trying to explain the idea of rent-seeking, I have always used one quintessential example from the United States — a sector in which markets don’t function, in which excess profits are held by a few. That world is Manhattan real estate development. Twenty-three square miles in area, Manhattan contains roughly 854,000 housing units. But there are many more people than that who want to own property there. A Manhattan pied-à-terre has long been a globally recognized sign of wealth and status — especially in recent years, as billionaires the world over have come to see a Manhattan condo, even one rarely visited, as a vessel for laundered wealth or a hedge against political upheaval at home.

Manhattan real estate development is about as far as it is possible to get, within the United States, from that Econ 101 notion of mutually beneficial transactions. This is not a marketplace characterized by competition and dynamism; instead, Manhattan real estate looks an awful lot more like a Middle Eastern rentier economy. . .

But this descent into a rentier economy would only accelerate with a mentality like Trump’s in the White House. The native-born population of the United States is aging rapidly; without immigrants the nation would quickly face a disastrous level of debt. Middle-class workers may be struggling now in a changing economy, but a clampdown on global trade would only make that worse. Any health care reform that revolved around the president’s ability to ‘‘deal’’ would inherently be one more prone to corruption. In a rentier state, every ambitious person knows that the way to become rich and powerful is to grab the sources of wealth and hold onto them, by force if necessary. It’s no accident that, around the world, rentier states tend to be run by unelected dictators — the ultimate dealmakers in chief.

Brooks opposes Trump for all the wrong reasons. He thinks Trump is low class, which Trump is, but that’s where his analysis really ends. Trump, and his followers, are uncool – and even worse, they refuse to acknowledge the natural right of Brooks and his ilk to command them.

Substantively, except for Trump’s recent conversion to actually enforcing immigration laws (which offends both Brooks’ finely tuned sense of decorum and his desire to underpay his housekeeper), Trump and Brooks often seem agree on a lot – until Trump changes his mind and starts believing something else. Both are really centrists pretending to be conservatives. Both are terrible Republicans. And both are New York bubble dwellers.

But while Trump knows his market – people who aren’t New York bubble dwellers – it is only in this column that Brooks admits he does not actually know anyone who Trump appeals to. For that, he sort of apologizes and promises that in the future he will try harder to do better to comprehend the residents of the country he presumes to write about. So good of him. Hey Brooks, all is forgiven … you crease-fetishizing, sycophantic snob. How condescending. “Oh, I really should have understood the actual people who make up the conservative base better. Duly noted. Now all kneel before me!”

Understand that he’s no fan of Ted Cruz either, mostly because Ted Cruz is so uncouth that he actually presumes to fight the progressive elite that gently pats Brooks on his noggin and invites him to all the best parties, secure in the knowledge that on command he will obediently denounce, disavow and repudiate the same Republicans he is supposed to be representing.

So, Trump gets about 40% of the primary vote and Cruz about 30% and, while I did go to a public school, I still think that adds up to at least 70% of the GOP electorate voting for one or another candidate whose platform is essentially a middle finger to the people like Brooks who ran the party for the last 30 years.

We need to be clear on who the people supporting Trump are. I’m a Trump opponent, though I will vote for him against that evil harpy Hillary Clinton in the general because her combination of unhinged malice and bottomless stupidity will lead her to create a climate that invites lasting damage to the Union, including but not limited to actual violence. But many who agree with me about Trump’s perfidy are seeing what they would like to see rather than what truly is when it comes to the people who support him. SunTzu was very clear – you need to understand your opponent as he is, not as you wish him to be, to defeat him. So let’s understand who Trump’s voters are.

They are not leftists. There is this notion that Trump himself is a leftist because some of his positions are or have been (as if there is a difference with Trump) liberal. He’s not a leftist; leftists are socialists and hate America and Americans. Trump is many things, often all at once, but he’s not that. And neither are his supporters. To try and dismiss him as a leftist like Clinton or Sanders is counterproductive.

They are not just impoverished victims bitter because they can’t make Buicks anymore. There’s this meme that they are all dirt poor Appalachian oxy addicts, and that’s just silly. (Side Note: Kevin Williamson of National Review has gotten grief for his unflinching reporting on white poverty; I don’t agree with all his conclusions, but his gripping work is some of the best reporting out there and demonstrates that the underclass’s problems are related to a poisonous culture rather than to factors like race that liberals exploit.)

While there is a huge economic displacement component to Trump’s appeal, most of his followers are the “work hard and play by the rules” people who get disrespected by the elite (when people like Brooks bother to notice them at all) but who do much of the work building and defending this country. Note the prominence of American flags, veterans’ issues, and promises not to squander more lives on elitist-contrived Middle Eastern crusades at Trump rallies. And then there is the talk of prioritizing America’s interests – do not underestimate the appeal to Americans of a politician willing to take America’s side.

Trump fans are not all racists and xenophobes. A lot of conservatives have used the same kind of leftist slanders to tar these people that helped alienate them in the first place, hence the way Trump’s rejection of political correctness is always cited as a yuge part of his appeal. Sure, some of the people who glommed onto his campaign are freaks, but anyone who has ever been around any campaign knows that they all attract a few weirdos who won’t ever shut up. And while the media will never, ever interview the La Raza creeps with the Mexican flags and the unironic signs reading “U.S. Out of North America” at Sanders rallies, they’ll swarm all over the IQ-challenged self-proclaimed “Nordic activist” drawn to a Trump rally.

True, Trump’s followers refuse to follow the rules of the PC kabuki dance that coastal elitists instinctively adhere to when discussing issues of race, sex, or Islam. That doesn’t make them terrible – it just makes them honest. Sure, the coastal types who carefully refer to illegal aliens as “undocumented workers” may frown when some guy from Phoenix calls these criminals what they are – you think the kind of citizen who supports Trump would get a pass if he broke the law? – but it’s the elitists who are the liars. It’s the elitists using PC to cover up the truth about the economic disruption and crime illegals cause, not the Trump voters. The elitists need to change, not the Trump fans.

But, of course, change is the one thing Brooks never even considers. Sure, he now acknowledges the need to socialize with people outside of Manhattan, by which he no doubt means flying to Iowa next time and awkwardly picking at a plate of French toast in some diner adjacent to a couple farmers in John Deere caps, silently wondering if the butter was locally sourced and counting the minutes until his flight back to La Guardia. But Brooks displays no intention whatsoever of altering any of his views based upon what he claims to have learned. Illegal immigration? Nope, he’s still at “Shut up racists.” Guns? Nope, he’s still at “Let me determine what few weapons you hicks should be glad I allow you to keep.” Obama? Nope, he’s still at “We can’t possibly actually oppose him – look at those creases!”

See Brooks, you and your buddies haven’t really learned anything because you haven’t shown any inclination to change anything. Deep down – actually, not that deep down – you don’t think you’ve done anything wrong. You think your own base is stupid and easily led, and you’re just mad because they are too smart to let you and your ilk lead them anymore.

Friday, March 18, 2016

"About the only thing anyone wants with your "papers" it to recycle it as ass wipe you arrogant little prick.

At 7:31 AM another brave anonymous (perhaps the same one) wrote:

"How ridiculously self important. You do understand that you are just a blogger? An unimportant little man, to be forgotten. No one wants your "library" because they don't want to hire labor staff to throw it in a dumpster. You have wasted both your life and your death on self worship and stubborn pride. You are thing to pity and then forget, not study and remember."

Saturday, March 12, 2016

In response to my post Harbinger below, another brave "Anonymous" helps me make my point. It is printed below in its entirety:

Yea, don't vote for Trump, vote for one of the Goldman Sachs backed candidates... I am sure that liar Cruz will really help our cause! Mike used to be a member of the Communist party... and probably still is... he likes to infiltrate the conservative militia movement then lead us astray.

Hitler was a nationalist, and a lot of the things they say about him was completely made up to demonize the man and his nationalist party. He was against gun control, the big banks, and for helping his (the German) people (you know the same stuff you guys claim to support)... yet he is demonized, even to this day (how long has the war been over?). And why is this? Because if you ever learned the truth of what happened to Germany, you would suddenly be awake to who is ruining America today...

Just google the story on that picture of the Nazi shooting the woman and child on his side column. In actuality, he is shooting past the woman and child, at communists, who were attempting to fire upon the Germans evacuating their kin. But don't expect the 'former' commie Mike V to tell you that. No, just remember, the Nazis are evil, and so is any other white person who loves their race and doesn't wish to see it destroyed. Oh, yea, and the Jews totally love you dumb goys. Keep fighting for Israel suckers! LOL

Google the 'long march through the institutions', only this communist didn't choose an institution, he choose the militia movement. Let's face it, Mike V, is leading you guys astray. You need to get behind a strong leader (And yes, I will admit Trump is not perfect, but who is?) who has the power to do something.

How many years has the militia movement been around? What have they accomplished? Just a bunch of headstrong wanna-be commandos in-fighting with each other, and doing dumb shit that doesn't gain much public support. And now a strong leader shows up, who can't be bought with Jew money, and he is demonized.... yes he isn't perfect, but this is the best chance to get someone sympathetic with our causes in the White House, and you got ass clowns like Mike V coming out against him, because god forbid he does more for you in 4 years, then the militia movement has done for us in 30 years....

But yea, I am co-intel pro, I am this, I am that.... you people are your own worst enemy. I am not using a VPN, I am not bothering to really hide my info, I am sure you can track me down, and the gov't definitely knows who I am. The gov't hates you Mike, and won't do shit to me, and neither will you Militia punks. Go clean your rifles one more time, and bury some more ammo... LOL.

But yea, Mike probably won't post this, just like he hasn't posted my other truthful comments (except for the one on March 6th), because he has an agenda to sell you people, and my thoughts can't be allowed to creep into the commentary.

Bottom line, Mike is a judas goat, and you people need to get behind Trump, because we don't have any more time for this shit.

But Mike won't have the balls to post this, just like he hasn't posted the vast majority of my other comments. Mike V is Bill Ayers biggest fan! So, the trolling will continue. Fuck you Mike V! May you rot in hell with your pals from the synagogue of satan!

The Roman Empire 'fell' only in the minds of people who had a particular and limited view of what the Roman Empire was . . . For the auxiliary soldier serving on the Rhine frontier at the end of the Roman period, for farmers in villages in central France . . . there was no abrupt fall of the imperial power . . . (This touches) on a question of fundamental importance for understanding the past and indeed the present, in human societies. The approach to the past for which I have argued is a 'bottom-up' one rather than the traditional 'top-down' approach. . . The big question . . . is which people drive change? Is change brought about largely through the actions of leaders, or by the majority of people? To read traditional text-based history of the first millennium, we would think that the persons named in the texts were the decisive factors . . . But battles were won by armies, not by generals. -- Barbarians To Angels: The Dark Ages Reconsidered by Peter S. Wells, pp. 200-291.

In St. Louis and in Chicago yesterday the future could be beheld by those with vision enough to glimpse "through a glass, and darkly, the age long strife."

It would be overly simple to explain this run-up to fratricide as between a shape-shifting demagogue and competing elites from the likes of George Soros and the Wall Street banksters and their GOP familiars. There is much truth in that view. But there is also no denying that yesterday represented two peoples eager to tear each other's throats out in an ancient atavism whose time has come round again.

For those of us who refuse to fully enlist in either cause, the choice is clear, If the three sided race war, abetted by various cynical strains of collectivism, is about to break wide open then it behooves us to work locally to defend our interests, our safety and our liberty against all sides who threaten them with their "true belief" We need not, we must not, choose an evil side in this clash of collectivisms (and yes, Trumpism represents one authoritarian strain of that age-old disease). We must stand ready to defend what may be defended, to save what must be saved and to preserve what may be preserved.

Thursday, March 10, 2016

The 8 days I spent in the hospital put me behind the eight ball on many tasks and yesterday y'all paid for that by not finding any posts in this space. I'm sorry, but with Matthew visiting from Germany we have lots of stuff to do and very little time to do it. We did finally get the video surveillance system installed for Rosey (and Matt worked like a champ on all the ladder work and cable pulling to get that accomplished). We also got the privet stumps ground by a local contractor, which was a herculean task in itself. Anyway, I will remain busy today sorting and moving surplus out of the storage lockers in preparation for the AGCA show coming up where I will have five tables. If I fall behind on my posting you perhaps begin to understand why.

Monday, March 7, 2016

Back home from the hospital into a bunch of stuff that had been postponed for more than a week. I am being excoriated in comments and emails by the Trump true believers/neo-Nazis/trolls for a variety of sins, including my "deliberate" ignoring the arrests of the Bunkerville Fourteen. The fact is that days ago I reached out to Jerry Delemus' wife with offers to help in any way I can but have as yet received no reply. When I get more, you will know more. In the mean time, it seems there are those who believe I am going to hell for disrespecting their new Saint Trump of Gotham City. I'll take my chances.

Sunday, March 6, 2016

I ain't caching nothing... I am going to need my hardware when you Jew loving militia fags try and overthrow our glorious leader, Trump... Death to jew loving race traitors (that would be you)! When you coming to PA pussy?

"Any time you hear someone talking about a brokered convention, it is the Washington establishment in a fevered frenzy, they are really frustrated because all their chosen candidates, their golden children, the voters keep rejecting," Cruz said Friday at the Conservative Political Action Conference (CPAC). "So they seize on this plan of a brokered convention, and the D.C. power brokers will drop someone in who is exactly to the liking of the Washington establishment. If that would happen, we would have a manifest revolt on our hands all across this country." In Cruz's mind, there's one way to beat Donald Trump: "with the voters."

The logic behind the move was because the L119 has "reduced ricochet, limited collateral damage" features. Both the L119 and L85A2 are chambered in the NATO-standard 5.56x45 mm round, indicating that 43 Commando will be using a low-velocity round for its L119s. The Royal Navy said this was a "one-off" purchase and was not a signal that the Royal Marines 3 Commando Brigade was going to be re-equipped with new weapon.

Wright belonged to the Ninth Air Force, which, following the ground invasion of France in June 1944, moved its bases from Britain to mainland Europe in order to provide closer support to the advancing troops. This picture was taken near St Trond, Belgium.

It was not the first time Wright's aircraft had been hit on a mission. By the time this photograph was taken, the 19-year-old had completed 39 missions and survived being hit by flak six times.

Wright was considered a very fortunate man by his squadron, who nicknamed him Lucky for his ability to evade death. The hole here measured eight inches in diameter in an 11-inch propeller. If the damage had been an inch and a half over on either side, the blade would have severed and Wright would have been brought down.

"Progress made under the shadow of the policeman's club is false progress."

I believe that liberty is the only genuinely valuable thing that men have invented, at least in the field of government, in a thousand years. I believe that it is better to be free than to be not free, even when the former is dangerous and the latter safe. I believe that the finest qualities of man can flourish only in free air – that progress made under the shadow of the policeman's club is false progress, and of no permanent value. I believe that any man who takes the liberty of another into his keeping is bound to become a tyrant, and that any man who yields up his liberty, in however slight the measure, is bound to become a slave. -- H.L. Mencken

On the efficacy of passive resistance in the face of the collectivist beast. . .

Had the Japanese got as far as India, Gandhi's theories of "passive resistance" would have floated down the Ganges River with his bayoneted, beheaded carcass. -- Mike Vanderboegh.

In the future . . .

When the histories are written, “National Rifle Association” will be cross-referenced with “Judenrat.” -- Mike Vanderboegh to Sebastian at "Snowflakes in Hell"

"Smash the bloody mirror."

If you find yourself through the looking glass, where the verities of the world you knew and loved no longer apply, there is only one thing to do. Knock the Red Queen on her ass, turn around, and smash the bloody mirror. -- Mike Vanderboegh

From Kurt Hoffman over at Armed and Safe.

"I believe that being despised by the despicable is as good as being admired by the admirable."

From long experience myself, I can only say, "You betcha."

"Only cowards dare cringe."

The fears of man are many. He fears the shadow of death and the closed doors of the future. He is afraid for his friends and for his sons and of the specter of tomorrow. All his life's journey he walks in the lonely corridors of his controlled fears, if he is a man. For only fools will strut, and only cowards dare cringe. -- James Warner Bellah, "Spanish Man's Grave" in Reveille, Curtis Publishing, 1947.

"We fight an enemy that never sleeps."

"As our enemies work bit by bit to deconstruct, we must work bit by bit to REconstruct. Be mindful where we should be. Set goals. We fight an enemy that never sleeps. We must learn to sleep less." -- Mike H. at What McAuliffe Said

"The Fate of Unborn Millions. . ."

"The time is now near at hand which must probably determine, whether Americans are to be, Freemen, or Slaves; whether they are to have any property they can call their own; whether their Houses, and Farms, are to be pillaged and destroyed, and they consigned to a State of Wretchedness from which no human efforts will probably deliver them. The fate of unborn Millions will now depend, under God, on the Courage and Conduct of this army-Our cruel and unrelenting Enemy leaves us no choice but a brave resistance, or the most abject submission; that is all we can expect-We have therefore to resolve to conquer or die." -- George Washington to his troops before the Battle of Long Island.

"We will not go gently . . ."

This is no small thing, to restore a republic after it has fallen into corruption. I have studied history for years and I cannot recall it ever happening. It may be that our task is impossible. Yet, if we do not try then how will we know it can't be done? And if we do not try, it most certainly won't be done. The Founders' Republic, and the larger war for western civilization, will be lost.

But I tell you this: We will not go gently into that bloody collectivist good night. Indeed, we will make with our defiance such a sound as ALL history from that day forward will be forced to note, even if they despise us in the writing of it.

And when we are gone, the scattered, free survivors hiding in the ruins of our once-great republic will sing of our deeds in forbidden songs, tending the flickering flame of individual liberty until it bursts forth again, as it must, generations later. We will live forever, like the Spartans at Thermopylae, in sacred memory.

-- Mike Vanderboegh, The Lessons of Mumbai:Death Cults, the "Socialism of Imbeciles" and Refusing to Submit, 1 December 2008

"A common language of resistance . . ."

"Colonial rebellions throughout the modern world have been acts of shared political imagination. Unless unhappy people develop the capacity to trust other unhappy people, protest remains a local affair easily silenced by traditional authority. Usually, however, a moment arrives when large numbers of men and women realize for the first time that they enjoy the support of strangers, ordinary people much like themselves who happen to live in distant places and whom under normal circumstances they would never meet. It is an intoxicating discovery. A common language of resistance suddenly opens to those who are most vulnerable to painful retribution the possibility of creating a new community. As the conviction of solidarity grows, parochial issues and aspirations merge imperceptibly with a compelling national agenda which only a short time before may have been the dream of only a few. For many Americans colonists this moment occurred late in the spring of 1774." -- T.H. Breen, The Marketplace of Revolution: How Consumer Politics Shaped American Independence, Oxford University Press, 2004, p.1.